SOUTH AFRICAN ACTUARY • OCTOBER 2022

Banking Practice
for Actuaries –
How it all happened
in South Africa

MICHAEL TICHAREVA

O
f late, I have been reflecting a lot on my contributions towards development of
the actuarial profession over the past 15 years. I then thought I should share with
you the South African journey on developing the banking practice for actuaries
that I have led since 2009. I thought that sharing will, hopefully, encourage others to
take up leadership roles within the profession for a greater cause, and in the public
interest.

I have written this article based on timelines of how things unfolded. I trust that you
enjoy the reading as I outline what seemed impossible at the start of the journey. In
Nelson Mandela’s words, it always seems impossible until it is done!

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2007 to 2010

The Actuarial Society of South Africa

(“ASSA”) adopted wider fields strategy
around 2007/2008 (to my knowledge).
Banking was listed as one of the main areas
for investigation. I moved into Banking
from Investments & Employee Benefits in
September 2008 - I was then 33 years old
next birthday. ASSA decided to establish
task forces to investigate different areas in
2009 and called for volunteers to lead these.

Having caused so much trouble to the then

CEO of ASSA (Emile Boeke) in encouraging
ASSA to consider banking practice seriously, and writing
a series of emails checking on progress throughout
2008, I was naturally recommended by the ASSA Council
to Chair the Banking Task Force at the end of 2009. The
Task Force did investigations in 2010 with a report on the
findings submitted to Council. The findings of the task
force were as expected. The Task Force recommended
establishment of a Banking Committee after finding out
that:
• More than 150 actuarial professionals, including
a significant number of qualified actuaries, were
already employed in banking practice, and were not
catered for by the profession.
• There were a lot of areas of banking practice where
actuarial applications were a natural fit.
• Regulations were driving change on how banks
were managed, and risk management based on
complicated models became a key focus area as
Basel II implementation gained momentum from
2008.
Chair. The key focus areas identified for the first few
years were as follows:
• Review the Committee’s Terms of Reference annually
for relevance in line with the Society’s strategic
focus.
• Consider development of a banking syllabus and
subject material.
• Develop relationships with key stakeholders in the
banking industry
• Progress and support research in key areas of
banking that may be identified.
• Hold at least three sessional meetings annually on
identified key issues in banking.
• Craft guidance notes for the Banking profession.
• Evaluate current professional guidance, including
guidance from other stakeholders (such as SARB and
SAICA) and assess the need for additional actuarial
guidance, and, if required, the Committee to develop
additional professional guidance.

The Task Force then developed a Terms of Reference

for the ASSA Banking Committee covering the following
objectives:
• To consider and provide input, from the point of view
of the actuarial profession, on matters relating to
Banking.
• To advise the actuarial profession on all matters
relating to Banking related activities.
• To lead in the development of education material and
professional guidance for actuaries.
The ASSA Council then approved establishment of the
ASSA Banking Committee in 2010 with me as the first
2010 to 2013
The ASSA Banking Committee started holding sessional
meetings to enhance CPD offering in Banking. I also
initiated discussions on the Banking Committee in 2011
on establishing tuition, but this was dismissed by other
Committee Members for a number of reasons, including
the view that we lacked resources and critical mass.
I reopened discussions on the banking subject again
in 2012 after partnering the late Garth Griffin, a highly
regarded senior actuary and a former President of ASSA

90

who was the then the Chair of Barclays Africa (ABSA), and
Pravin Burra, another Senior Actuary who was a Partner
at Deloitte at the time and was also on the ASSA Council.
These two respected actuaries greatly supported
this view, so I now had leverage. This time it gained
momentum and the proposal was supported by Council,
although informally. Pravin Burra, who was a Council
Member, and also a member of the Banking Committee,
did a lot of lobbying on behalf of the Banking Committee.
We now had to clear some hurdles such as motivating
for the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) subject to
count towards the fellowship track as it did not count at
the time. We needed the ERM subject as a recommended
specialist subject for taking the banking fellowship
subject. Some senior actuaries in other traditional
practice areas did not support ERM to count towards
fellowship at all at the time.
We then decided to engage the membership as a show of
democracy. So we held sessional meetings to argue for
ERM to count towards fellowship in Johannesburg and
Cape Town, and the late Garth Griffin and Andrew Gladwin
joined both as they were promoters. The Johannesburg
meeting voted an overwhelming NO, but the Cape Town
meeting voted YES by a very small margin. Most members
of the Education Board (EB) voted NO, although it was not
a binding vote since it was not a decision of the EB, but
one of Council. Based on these split votes, Council then
led by Themba Gamedze as President and Peter Temple
as President Elect resolved formally to let the ERM
subject count towards fellowship in the best interests of
the Actuarial Society and development of the profession.
2013 to 2015
On the back of ERM now counting towards fellowship,
we then motivated for a Banking subject at fellowship
level. Council, again, voted YES to a banking subject, but
required strong motivation for implementation. This was
with Themba Gamedze, Peter Temple, Pravin Burra and
Mike McDougall leading at Council in support at leadership
level. Andrew Gladwin and myself led in support at the
Curriculum Committee where serious debates took
place before motivation to the EB and Council. I was not
a member of the EB or Council at the time of motivation,
only joining both in 2014, so my influence was limited at
that higher level of decision making.
SOUTH AFRICAN ACTUARY • OCTOBER 2022
The late Garth Griffin
influenced the direction a
great deal, as he encouraged
the ASSA leadership to
consider banking seriously –
The late Garth Griffin influenced the direction a great
deal, as he encouraged the ASSA leadership to consider
banking seriously – as I said earlier, he was the then
Chair of the Barclays Africa (ABSA Group) Board with
great relationships with the South African Reserve Bank.
I agreed to lead the whole process and set up everything
with the assistance of the ASSA Executives and the
Education Office. I admit that I had no clue where to
start, but the creativity came as I navigated through the
process, and with the support of the Banking Committee
members.
We designed a syllabus led by myself, Pravin Burra and
2 Australian Actuaries, Stephen Claxton and Phillip
Everett, and reviewed by the late Garth Griffin. Initially
the syllabus was highly technical and Garth Griffin tore it
apart saying that it was not going to serve the intended
purposes. So we had to revise the syllabus to reflect
the fellowship level of thinking in line with the other
fellowship subjects.
I then investigated, on the internet, some banking text
books that we could use as a base for the banking
subject, and I came across Professor Moorad Choudhry’s
books. Professor Moorad Choudhry is a world renowned,
UK based, author in banking, so he was a natural choice
for me. So I motivated for his engagement to convince
others. The motivation was accepted and ASSA bought
one of Professor Moorad Choudhry’s books, Principles
of Banking, that I then reviewed. It was fascinating, so
I recommended that we use it as a base for the banking
subject. ASSA then gave permission that I approach
Professor Moorad Choudhry as we needed his expertise,
being a professor with significant practical experience in
banking. I led negotiations with Professor Moorad until
we agreed a contract.
Through the help of Lee Bromfield, who was then working
for FNB Retail, and a member of the Banking Committee, I
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recruited an external project manager, Kim McCarthy, with
publishing experience and negotiated a contract. The lady
was highly skilled in project management and she proof
read every chapter. She was simply a pleasure to work with
such that we delivered within budget and timelines.
Through the actuarial networks that I had established,
and the help of the ASSA Banking Committee Members, I
also recruited banking actuaries in the industry to review
every chapter, and agreed their honoraria. Some of the
experienced banking actuaries involved in the review
of the notes included Phillip Olivia, Simon Greenberg,
Alastair Bye, Dawie Spangenberg, Antonie Jagga, and
Rolf Van Den Heever among others. The late Garth Griffin
and Pravin Burra who were the main promoters also
reviewed and gave input to some chapters.
In my case, I was not remunerated for the
many hours that I spent in between my day
to day work. I worked day and night and
weekends on this for free as a volunteer.
I donated my time and knowledge for this
great cause. It was my way of giving back to
the profession, and it was, indeed, fulfilling!
The Education Board and Council then approved both
the budget and the project plan. I joined Council and the
Education Board in 2014 on the invitation of Themba
Gamedze and Peter Temple, which helped a great deal in
presenting and motivating the case from then onwards.
Work then started on developing the Tuition material
in 2014, with Prof Moorad in the lead, supported by two
other UK based professors with international experience.
The notes were written from scratch, but borrowed a lot
of material from Prof Moorad’s previous work. We had to
convert the material to be actuarially relevant, and this
was one of the major roles that I played being an actuary
in banking practice at the time.
I reviewed every chapter before passing it on to those
other actuaries to whom I had allocated topics based on
their areas of specialisation. In some cases, I made a lot
of edits for actuarial relevance. I remember at one point
the late Garth Griffin disagreeing with Professor Moorad
on the Banking Governance chapter, and the late Garth
Griffin had to rewrite the whole chapter to reflect what
he believed was relevant in banking and should be taught
to actuaries. It was both interesting and enlightening
to see two gurus of banking practice engaging and
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agreeing to disagree. The late Garth Griffin had the final
say though, as the custodian of the actuarial profession.
So his revised chapter was then reviewed by Prof Moorad
who then fully agreed with the contents. I learnt a great
deal though this process.
The involvement of the late Garth Griffin allowed us to
get access to, and input from, senior banking executives
and the South African Reserve Bank Governor and their
teams. We shared our syllabus with several banking
executives who supported the syllabus objectives, and
some gave positive comments on the notes.
2015 to 2020
We finished writing the tuition material on time and
within budget in the first half of 2015. Through our
actuarial networks, I then led the recruitment of the Chief
Examiner (Rolf Van Den Heever), 2 Assistant Examiners
(Antonie Jagga and Alastair Bye) and the External
Examiner (initially the late Garth Griffin but taken over by
Pravin Burra on the passing of Garth just before launch),
and motivating to the EB and Council. The team was
hailed as a good mix of experience and youth.
We held the first Banking Seminar in June 2015 where
we launched the banking subject formally. We have held
banking seminars annually since then. We launched the
banking exam in the second half of 2015. Garth Griffin,
whom we had appointed as external examiner. passed
on just around the exam date. I then approached Pravin
Burra who agreed to take up the external examiner role.
I volunteered to become the course leader of the Banking
subject for Tuition support. I have presided over all
tuition sessions since 2015.
Following launch of the banking subject, consideration
was given to beefing up the Actuarial Risk Management
subject to include some banking content at an earlier
stage of the exams. This has happened. The investments
fellowship subject also now has banking content.
I was appointed as the first Chair of the International
Actuarial Association (IAA) Banking Working Group towards
the end of 2016, following nomination by ASSA led by Peter
Doyle, a senior actuary, past President of ASSA, and former
Group CEO of the then Metropolitan, who had approached
me for the role. I gladly accepted, and to this day I am still
the Chair of the renamed IAA Banking Virtual Forum.

As the Chair of both the IAA Banking Working Group
and the ASSA Banking Committee at the time, the ASSA
Banking Committee also identified the following as key
strategic focus areas:
• Lead and give input to further the work of the IAA
Banking Working Group
• Hold a number of banking seminars at the IAA semi-
annual meetings held around the world, funded by ASSA
• Encourage IAA member associations to consider
banking as a practice area
• Develop a Banking Practice Area Development
Toolkit to assist IAA member associations in
establishing their banking practice areas.
• Carry out survey around the world’s actuarial
professional bodies to gather interest of members
in banking, where we had more than 800 responses
that were largely in support of banking practice for
actuaries.
I stepped down as the Chair of the ASSA Banking Committee
at the end of 2017 after 8 years, and handed over to Kudzai
Chigiji who also delivered spectacularly before handing
over to Christiaan Opperman, the current Chair. I learnt
that it is important to develop leaders who can take over
and sustain the cause long after you are gone.
My ASSA Council term expired at the end of 2017 and I also
stepped down as Chair and member of the EB at the end of
2017. I am now back on Council again, and on the Education
Board, and hopefully I will continue to make a difference.
We started considering internationalising the banking
subject in 2017. We introduced the offering that would
lead to a certificate in banking, but it did not take off as
we would have wanted. However, in 2020, consideration
for banking international exams was made easy with
online exams being introduced due to Covid.
We, therefore, considered introducing a specialist
subject in banking, an F100 level exam to accompany
the advanced banking subject. Kudzai Chigiji led this
process as the then Chair of the Banking Committee,
and successfully led the ultimate partnership with the
Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA).
2020 to current
ASSA entered into partnership with the IFoA to revamp the
banking subject and split it into two. A banking specialist
SOUTH AFRICAN ACTUARY • OCTOBER 2022
and banking application subjects were then developed
with Kudzai Chigiji leading the team that included IFoA
and ASSA members. The other team members included
Christiaan Opperman, Jerome Mahadeo and Antonie
Jagga from the ASSA Banking Committee, and Iain Allan
and Dr. John Young from the IFoA, among others. I was
only consulted in the background and I was not part
of the main team as the team was adequate and well
experienced. They delivered specutacularly.
The international banking subjects were launched in
collaboration with the IFoA, and the first exams were taken
in May 2022. There was zero pass rate for international
students in the advanced application subject in the
May 2022 sitting, similar to when the subject was first
introduced in 2015 where no one passed. A Certificate in
Banking was also re-launched for those not following the
actuarial fellowship route, or who have already qualified
in other practice areas.
I have remained the course leader for the advanced
banking subject to guide students taking the fellowship
exam, and enrolment has increased with more
international students joining the tuition sessions.
Through the IAA Banking Virtual Forum that I chair, we
continue to influence other actuarial bodies across the
globe to promote the involvement of actuaries in banking.
This will be a continuous process until banking practice has
matured, and it will take many decades of concerted effort.
Some great lessons along the way
There were some great lessons along the way that
included the following:
• Being thought leaders can lead to positive change,
with ASSA deciding to go it alone in 2013:
o When the IFoA refused to partner on the basis that
it would never gain traction, and that it was not
going to be popular.
o When the Australian actuaries realised that they
did not have support within their Governance
structures to progress the initiative.
• Debating with actuaries who opposed banking
as eroding the value of the actuarial profession
but who, in most cases, seemed to have limited
understanding of what they were talking about given
that it was not their area of expertise.
• Realising how fellow actuaries usually have no clue
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about what they do not know, and yet pretend to know.
• Realising in 2013 that I still did not know much about
banking practice myself, having already spent
5 years in banking, and with an MBA focused on
banking and finance related subjects. I learnt more
through the banking subject development process.
• Learning that “Finance” is not the same as
“Banking” when it comes to sound management of
banking institutions. We started off as a Banking
and Finance Committee in 2010, and later changed
the name to Banking Committee after realising the
major differences, and aligning with our objective
of actuaries being involved in managing banking
institutions from end to end in the same way they do
in traditional areas of actuarial practice.
• Learning that “sound risk management for
sustainability” ahead of “profitability at all costs” is
at the centre of every decision within a bank, which
makes it a domain practice area for actuaries as risk
managers.
• Being at the centre of significant change that would
later take the actuarial profession by storm around
the world – everyone is now talking about banking
practice for actuaries and we are presenting a
number of webinars around the world through the
IAA banking Virtual Forum jointly with member
associations.
• There were many leadership lessons that were learnt
in the process, with great insights on how to deal
with and influence people – I learnt many normative
skills going through this process.
• Lessons on how different people may hold
completely different views and yet all still be correct
– it’s about defining your objective clearly and
convincing others.
• Lessons on how powerful “holding sincere coffee
sessions” with those opposing your idea is in
bringing them to your side – it bridges the gap and
helps forge a common purpose. I did a lot of that,
and sometimes had to deal with and convince people
holding powerful positions, which is a difficult task.
• Lessons on when to play politics and when to stop,
but doing it professionally for the greater good of the
profession.
• Lessons on how to deal with difficult characters and
win them over for the greater good.
• The fulfilment of giving your time selflessly to a good
cause that changes the face of the world is a lifetime
experience – I believe we changed the thinking of
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the actuarial profession through introducing banking
practice for actuaries.
• Lessons on how to influence other professionals
around the world towards a common cause.
• Realising how many good friends I made through this
process, and today I am leveraging those relationships.
• Realising how people can deliver to the best of their
abilities when they are inspired by the vision of their
leaders.
• Realising that knowledge is a powerful tool to
influence things towards a desired direction:
o You cannot successfully push for what you don’t
know or don’t believe in.
o When you argue with verifiable facts, you will
always win an argument.
• Realising that the status quo, although comfortable
and less risky, is not always the best for society – we
need to always innovate and influence for progress
and change. We must never fear change as change is
the only constant.
• Leveraging the power of communication to tell your
story and influence.
Many thanks to all those volunteers who helped in the
process. Special mention goes to the ASSA Education
Office initially led by Petrus Bierman and later by Conrad
Backeberg who played a significant role in driving the
initiative. Christelle Mouton was the only constant in the
education office as she presided over the development
throughout. Mike McDougall, the ASSA CEO, and the rest of
the ASSA executive team also led well with great support
coming from the late Wim Els and the rest of the ASSA
office leadership. The support provided by successive
Councils, the Education Board, and the Chief Examiner,
Christoff Raath, can also not go unmentioned. In the end,
it was all about leadership, decisiveness, and execution.
This is a story that has never been told in this detail. I
believe that it is important to reflect on history as there
are always some important learnings to take from it. I
trust that you enjoyed the story.
Aluta Continua as we continue to develop the actuarial
profession from all angles – It always seems impossible
until it is done – Nelson Mandela!
Michael Tichareva BComm, FASSA, FIA, MBA (Wits)
Chair of the IAA Banking Virtual Forum
Executive Chairman & Senior Actuary – Claxon Actuaries
International